


A shift in perspective

by LeDiz



Series: The 48: Dragon Age [3]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: Angst, Gen, Mourning, slowly losing grip of reality, the shift between Origin!Merill and DA2!Merrill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-22
Updated: 2016-07-22
Packaged: 2018-07-26 00:58:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7554052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeDiz/pseuds/LeDiz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Tamlen disappears and Mahariel is taken away by the human, Merrill doesn't quite deal with what happened, and slowly begins to break.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A shift in perspective

The ‘new warden’ leaves, and that’s that. The clan prays for him, mourns Tamlen, packs up their camp, and moves north.

Merrill feels like she leaves something behind.

She doesn’t know what it is. She rides a halla that leads the herd, watching their surroundings and looking for something she can’t name. She doesn’t speak to anyone, but that’s not surprising. Tamlen was the only one who ever sought her out. Even Mahariel—wait, no, he’s ‘warden’ now. That’s all anyone calls him these days—spoke to her only because Tamlen did. She has always been different. Alone. Moreso than any Keeper.

And now she has nothing.

Less than nothing. Something is missing.

She speaks to the Keeper. Tries to explain her loss.

“You are mourning, da’len,” she says gently, threading long fingers through Merrill’s hair. “We have lost two beloved lethalin, and that hurt will take time to heal.”

“I don’t know if that’s what it is,” she argues. “I miss Tamlen, it’s true. But this feels different. _Wrong_. Something is wrong.”

The Keeper stares at her for a long time, her eyes becoming sharp for only a short portion. Then they are sad, and Merrill doesn’t know what she’s done wrong. “Then pray to the Creators that it shall pass.”

She doesn’t pray. At night, she sits beside the Dread Wolf and stares into the darkness. She feels like it stares back, and somehow that makes her feel safe.

 

* * *

 

Time passes, and things change. Merrill changes.

With her thoughts always on Tamlen, and what it is she left behind, she struggles to focus. Her Keeper’s teachings do not hold as they always have. She drifts. The Keeper’s eyes are often sharp, these days. They watch her. They are cautious. Lessons become shorter and less frequent.

Alone as she is, she so rarely speaks to anyone. But when she does, she finds she has developed a stammer. She flounders for the right words.

The others begin to watch her. They are worried.

She continues to sit with the Dread Wolf at night, staring south. She knows there is something back there that she needs.

 

* * *

 

By the time they settle on the Sundermount, the whole clan is concerned for her. She knows many have gone to the Keeper to discuss her.

She ignores them, and takes long walks on the mountain. Her feet no longer listen to her mind. Or perhaps her mind is too distracted to speak to them. She rarely ends up where she intended to go. Often she has to be found and brought back to camp.

She is treated as a burden.

One night, they are slow to come for her, so she continues to wander the mountain top. There is a cave. She goes in, because she knows she came out of a cave before, so it makes sense that she should go back into one.

She thinks of Tamlen. She thinks of the ‘warden’. She thinks of that blasted mirror.

It has been months, but she dreams of it and its lost reflection every night.

She stops, because she has reached a dead end. A moment later, she realises she’s staring up at an odd-looking idol. Gold, with strange red details. Like blood. It sings to her. She can’t help but touch it.

The singing doesn’t stop. It enters her mind and swirls around her distracted thoughts.

It’s a spirit, she realises, and for a moment, allows herself to think like Tamlen, who would have been fascinated. Who would have wanted to know about it.

When the spirit stops singing to speak, she listens.

 

* * *

 

News reaches them, in time, that their beloved Mahariel has slain the archdemon and lived. The Keeper hands her a message that is to be sent to the new ‘Champion of Ferelden’ and not read.

It is a test, and she fails it.

The Keeper writes that she knows what he has done to survive. She will not judge him, as she has faith that this, like his choices with Tamlen, have higher purpose. She hopes that he and his mage will find a way.

The implications are clear. This warden has done things _. Wrong_ things.

Perhaps even blood magic.

And it saved the world.

Merrill hands off the message to be sent, and goes back to the singing spirit.

This time she does not just listen. She learns.

 

* * *

 

The clan no longer worries for her.

They do not watch her as she walks.

They do not search for her when it grows dark.

They do not welcome her when she makes her way back to camp.

She ignores it. Wonders how they would respond to their precious warden if he were to come to them. Somehow knows that Tamlen would understand. Tamlen would forgive what she has done.

Tamlen will be thankful when she brings him back.

They all will.

 

* * *

 

Varric is sweet and mourning when she goes to him. He listens, and nods. He will give her a ship – hell, he’ll go with her to get this aluvi-whatsit. He could use the time away from Kirkwall and its petty politics. He could definitely use the time off from the blasted merchant’s guild.

“Come with us, Hawke,” Merrill wheedles, and he laughs dryly.

“As much fun as spending months on a boat to find a broken mirror will be, I think it’s best I stay here,” he says, and his lips twist. “Particularly this month. We haven’t received word from Carver yet.”

Which means his mother is blaming Hawke for his recruitment to the Wardens. She is blaming him for Bethany’s death. She would rage and scream if he left her now.

So Merrill reaches out and touches his cheek, but says nothing.

If this works, he will no longer feel the burden of Bethany’s death.

The eluvi’an will make everything better, she knows it.

 

* * *

 

It has been seven years since she left the clan. Five since she brought back the damned relic. Two days since she destroyed everything she once held dear.

She is sitting in front of the useless broken mirror when she hears the door open and close. The footsteps are too light to be Hawke, so she knows it must be Varric. She shoves her tears away and tries for a smile as she turns, but it vanishes at the sight of the man in the doorway.

Mahariel looks different than she remembers.

He is broader now. Broad like Fenris. He wears what she knows is dragonscale. There are two longswords strapped to his back that faintly glow and the bow hooked beneath them is exquisite, burning with internal flame.

“You,” she whispers.

“It’s brave of you to leave your door unlocked,” he says, folding his arms. “I hear Kirkwall isn’t safe.”

“What are you… how did you…”

“A request from the King of Ferelden,” he explains vaguely. “And I wanted to check on Anders.”

“Oh! You know him, don’t you?” she asks, and latches on to it because it’s more tangible than Mahariel’s impossible presence in her home. “You’ll speak to him, won’t you? He might listen to you – he speaks very highly of you. He’s been not himself lately. More than usual, I mean. Do you know about Justice? I think it…”

She trails off as she notices his gaze. He is just staring at her, stoic and silent. But she was once trained as a Keeper, to know the signs of turmoil, and grew up beside this man. She watched him develop his blank stare. She knows how to read it.

He is sad.

“You… know then? What I did?”

His eyes flick to the eluvi’an and back. “I saw the camp. The bodies. I want to hear your version.”

She tries, and fails, to find a response. She sits back down and presses her hands to her face. He stays standing.

“They didn’t give me a choice,” she whispers. “None of them gave me a choice. I could have done it. I would have been fine. Everything would have been fine if they’d just left me alone. And if anything had gone wrong, Hawke would have… Hawke would have…!”

 “What were you trying to do?” he asks, still so calm. So even.

“I… I just… I wanted… I wanted to make it better. Make it all better.”

Mahariel is quiet for a while, before he says, finally, “You won’t be the last to say that. It was good to see you, lethalin.”

She looks up, and he nods, but says nothing more before turning and walking out.

 

* * *

 

She isn’t sure what he means until a week later, when she stares at Anders, sitting quietly on an overturned crate. Hawke is seething with heartbreak, betrayal, and a dozen other emotions, and stalks back and forth behind Anders as he searches for the words.

Anders has caused a war that the humans will not bounce back from, no matter how this night ends. He has changed the world.

And still, all Merrill can think is that he was trying, so hard, to save them all.

She thinks of her lost warden, and what he said, and realises that she of all people probably should have seen it coming.

**Author's Note:**

> The 48 is a collection of unfinished fics saved on my hard drive. I'm posting them here in case anyone is interested.
> 
> I've said it before, I'll say it again: I think there could have been better decisions than Merrill for the DA2 elven blood mage. But hey! Watch me create a head canon to make it fit.


End file.
